Leon Bridges debuts powerful new River video

Leon Bridges released the new music video for “River” Monday, and it’s filled with images both deeply upsetting and hopeful: In one shot, a man walks home in a bloodied shirt as lights from police cars shine behind him. In another, that same man holds his baby on his bare chest from the comfort of his home as rain pours outside.

Bridges, who released his debut album this past June, told NPR he wrote the track when he “had little hope and couldn’t see a road out of my reality.”

“When thinking about how to best visually represent this universal battle, I reflected on the depiction of black communities in our media and particular experiences within my own life,” Bridges said. The video was filmed in Baltimore, the site of Freddie Gray’s April 2015 death and the resulting Baltimore protests.

“This video showcases the unique struggle many black men and women face across this country,” Bridges continued. “However, unlike the captured images which tend to represent only part of the story, I wanted to showcase that through all the injustice, there’s real hope in the world.”

Watch the video, which concludes with Bridges himself leaving his hotel room to face the rain.